Wednesday, 30 September 2015

This blanket started from one 2 oz hank of yarn, a chunky yarn from the 1950s judging from the label, Argyll Wools Bulkee, in dark green. A few months later I found a second hank of the same yarn, in the same shade in a different shop some miles away. So I started collecting chunky woollen yarns in matching shades, and came up with two hanks of Jaeger Naturgarn in a pale rust and two hanks of brown Icelandic yarn from a French company, Laine d'Islande from Laines Berger du Nord.

I planned to find the rest from the yarn store, but just before I started knitting I found 16 more hanks of the Jaeger Naturgarn, this time in a mustard yellow. The shade went well with the other yarns. So now I had plenty for a full sized blanket for a single bed.

My plan was to knit the blanket in the same way as gungstolsmattan, with fringing at each end so there would be no need to fasten ends. But with so much of one single yarn that was no longer necessary, so I looked around for another pattern. A slip stitch pattern still seemed a good idea, but I would rather try something else than do linen stitch again. I looked in my copy of the Harmony Guide volume III. There were a number of suitable patterns, and it was difficult to choose, so I went for the first one II.1 on page 24.

My pattern looks different, because I used three strands instead of two, but I rather prefer the lozenge shapes of this one with the slipped stitches forming crosses. Knitting was easy, as long as you kept track of the stitches, and I enjoyed it, partly for the pleasure of knitting with nice chunky wool. I had to add some Annabel Fox chunky brown wool in the middle, from my Geo Modern Throw.

All in all I am very happy with it. There are two things. The pattern was supposed to symmetrical from the centre, but I kept knitting without measuring, so it doesn't, and I really didn't want to undo it when I realised. The other thing is that I wished I had tried larger needles, as it might be even nicer knitted more loosely.

Monday, 7 September 2015

The next blanket was due to be one of the dark ones, with dark red and purple this time. I enjoy knitting it, the same as with all the rest. There are no awkward yarns this time, no colours that stand out, and hardly any synthetics. The colour in the picture is much too light.

I unravelled this nice dark red hand knitted sweater in a standard pattern in reverse stocking stitch with two narrow lace panels. It is very well knitted with no signs of wear. The yarn is obviously wool with a slight halo, and it is a pleasure to knit.